The Lion's Roar
by Instinct Uncaged
Summary: Leonar is a dark angel space marine. He commands three squads of dark angels. This story is about how the dark angels have to defend a tyranid invasion on the world of Ophelia IV


**Dark Angels vs. Tyranids**

Baradiel stared out at the recruitment line and sighed, two thousand three hundred and sixty two new recruits including these last three from tenth company. It was late in the evening and the sun was setting on their last day on Kimeraia, the sun was slowly sliding down behind the grey mountaintops creating a blood red sky. It was third company's turn to do recruitment duty before they would return to their rock, the large asteroid fortress.

Baradiel stood and addressed the scouts, "welcome my battle brothers, to what do we owe the pleasure of having you here today", his features hardened when no one spoke, "let's do it this way then, attention!"

They all immediately snapped to attention.

"Seeing as you lot don't talk I'll make this simple, I'll ask your name, and then you give me your name, rank and reason they are here, O'K"

The scouts nodded. Baradiel rubbed his palms together "so who wants to go first, no wait, don't answer that, I'll pick", he pointed to the first in the line, "name?"

"Sanganar sir! Gunnery sergeant, Tenth company and to serve the emperor sir!" the scout said without taking a breath.

"Good, now, next!"

"Leonar sir! Sergeant Grade three, Tenth company and to destroy the enemies of the emperor"

"Hmmmm, Leonar, I'll remember that name, next!"

"MM, aaa, nooo!" and the scout fainted.

Baradiel turned his storm bolter, fired and the scout was dead. "Third company is not for the faint of heart, now come"

One hundred and three years after that recruitment Leonar lay on his bunk staring at the ceiling. He had been upgraded to a Lutenient and as a result had been given three squads of Dark Angels to command, and then he heard a hammering as if someone was smashing their fists into the stonewall from the dungeon. He had heard this before and had often asked the most senior Dark Angels what was causing, the reply was always "just some heretic scum" and when he asked what they had done he was always told to shut his mouth and get back to work.

The door to his chamber swung open and Grand Master Baradiel strode in "it is time". This was all Leonar needed as he put on his dark green power armour, tied his chain sword to its belt and put his plasma pistol on the other side of his belt.

He saw that all of third company was readying itself for battle. He took his place in front of his three squads. He saw the company veteran squads with their cream coloured robes and the assault squads testing their jets.

Then Grand master Baradiel rose to the main platform and spoke in a loud clear voice "My battle brothers of Third company, today we are called forth to protect the world of Ophelia IV against a Tyranid hive fleet, they may be numberless but we are space marines, we are the defenders of humanity and by the Emperor we will defend this world till our dying breath and no sooner!" a tremendous roar of approval sounded when this speech was done.

Leonar boarded his ship, but even as he did, he had the feeling that not many of them would return.

The ship rocked and shuddered as it pulled out of warp space and was bombarded by fire from tyranid spore ships. Baradiels voice suddenly blared over the intercom "battle brothers prepare to drop in three, two, one… drop!"

There was a large metallic grinding sound as the thunderhawk gunship was dropped from the frigate and propelled towards the planet surface.

Even as they flew down to the planet surface, the gunship jolted and shuddered.

Leonar put on his helmet and the blast doors opened. Once the doors opened a horrorifying sight met his eyes, as he stared out across the land he could see nothing but a never-ending swarm of scythes and talons.

Suddenly there was a hissing sound and the ship shuddered violently, Leonar turned his head to see a large hole melted into the back of the ship.

Leonar felt the ship's tortured machine spirit cry out in pain. Leonar looked for the source of the hole and saw them; a huge swarm of tyranid gargoyles, there were so many that they looked like a large black voracious cloud.

The thunder hawk's guns turned and opened fire upon them with heavy bolter and lascannon fire. Then several creatures leaped up out of the massive swarm below, propelled by powerful leg muscles, aided by lesser creatures onto the ship. They clung to the sides, digging their claws deep into the side of the ship's armour.

Leonar called to the pilot up front "shake them off!" the ship spun as the pilot tried to rid them of the horrors on their ship, but the beasts had crawled forward to the blast doors and it soon turned into a close quarter fight.

Leonar ducked as a large scything talon swung past him, it struck the devastator marine behind him in the back.

"Hormogaunts on board!" shouted Leonar, there was a smash glass from somewhere near the pilot and the ship began to spiral towards the ground.

"Marines, jump!" cried Leonar, as they were close enough to the ground, he leapt from the ship using all his strength he could summon; he landed on several tyranids which his weight and the force of his fall crushed.

As soon as he got up more tyranids were upon him in seconds, he revved his chainsaw and charged into them.

He brought his chainsword up in a large upward stroke hitting one of the warriors full in the chest; the teeth of his blade got stuck in the beast. Leonar squeezed the trigger harder and the teeth started to grind into it's chest, spraying purple ichar onto his armour, it shrieked in agony and thrust him back, it's talons scraping across his armour. Leonar stumbled back but recovered his stance, then more beasts were upon him, out of the group five hormogaunts leapt at him, Leonar fired his plasma pistol and a bolt hit one of the creatures then there was a roar of bolter fire and the creatures were ripped apart by the explosive shells, it did not stop though it continued on mowing down the oncoming tide. Leonar looked round to find the source, he found it. Three members of his devastator squad stood releasing their wrath upon the tyranid swarm, Sanganar among them.

"Brother!" he called to Leonar; Leonar ran to the squad's side, "how do you fair brother?" Leonar asked Sanganar.

"We have lost three battle brothers and we do not know the whereabouts of the assault or tactical squad".

"Curse these xenos, we must try and find them bef-", but the rest of his sentence was drowned out by a loud explosion, probably krak missile Leonar thought, he gestured to Sanganar to direct the squad in that direction.

Leonar charged forth cutting through the hordes of gaunts spraying the area with ichar while the devastators continued to hold off the tide of aliens. As he cleared the last group of Hormogaunts he saw six of his tactical marines engaged in combat, five with bolters while one tried to reload his missile launcher. Just then a group of genestealers which must have been lurking amongst the horde leapt out and began to tear into the marine holding the missile launcher, Leonar charged into them and with his righteous fury cleaved two of them in half with a side stroke, he dived forward as one of the genestealers slashed at his back with it's claws, he rolled and let off two shots from his plasma pistol killing another, then he turned and stabbed a genestealer through the chest with his chainsword, he revved the blade and the beast shrieked in agony as it was being ripped apart inside.

Leonar plunged his blade into the grass and knelt by his brother "may you live forever in the eyes of the emperor" he said, then he turned and another genestealer that had been hiding leapt at him, a single bolt shot rang out and the beasts head exploded, Leonar turned back to see the marine holding a smoking bolt pistol, then the marine coughed out "for the emperor" and went limp.

Leonar drew his sword from the ground and surveyed the area, then he spotted a place of refuge, a large mansion placed just on the top of a hill with a good overview of the battle he gestured to his squads to head for that direction.

Once they had fought there way through the swarm they trudged up the hill wary of the swarm below, then they reached the mansion, Leonar gestured for the heavy bolters to be stationed behind him ready to fire in the door, then he kicked the doors open with one foot. The sun had begun to set and there was a deep orange sunset behind them. It was dark in side so Leonar gestured for night vision inside; he entered the dark main hall and turned his on.

A scene of carnage met his eyes; the floor was drenched in blood, red and purple. There was green armour strewn across the floor some plates torn in half, others remained whole, almost intact, chainswords lay torn apart bent or snapped in two, but of all these things Leonar noticed one thing above all. A shoulder pad, with the insignia of his three squads: the white lion roaring.

He walked over to it, his feet splashing in the blood on the floor and picked it up. He heard his squads follow in behind him "what in emperor's name could have done this" said one of them.

"Find me a helmet, there has to be at least one working helmet here," he said to the group.

"Yes sir".

It took some time but fifteen minutes later they had a helmet, it had a large scratch right across the front reaching from the top left to the bottom right of the helmet. Leonar took his helmet of and put on the retrieved helmet, he then pressed the button in the back to activate the stored recording.

It started in the thunderhawk the marine was staring around at his assault squad, then he looked out across to Leonar's thunderhawk, then something light green streaked out from the far right and hit the back of the thunderhawk. The marine then turned to his squad, then the gunship started to shudder and the sergeant shouted "same thing has happened to us, marines prepare your boosters, it's gonna be rough" the marine then held up his wrist to see his jump pack readings, all were green, then the sergeant shouted "go go go!" The marine jumped and pressed the buttons on his wrist and he soared with the rest of his squad into the air, then came the landing, it looked very hard as the impact of them left a crater in the ground, but there was no respite the marines immediately raised there chainswords and ran into the swarm, finally they cleared the swarm, only five remained, and the marine turned his head and pointed to what Leonar knew was the house they were now in. The other marines nodded and they too trudged up the hill, they too kicked open the doors and they too entered the main hall, except it was light and there was no blood.

The sergeant gestured for them to check the perimeter, half an hour later only four came back, the squad sergeant looked "where's Apex?" he said.

The camera swivelled round the room and caught sight of a bolt pistol, a hand gestured towards the pistol lying just outside of a slightly opened wooden door, which lead to the wine cellar. The four marines edged forward, then the door swung shut, the camera swivelled to the door then swivelled back to the others, they nodded and continued on. Then there was a loud sound as if something had burst from the ground, the camera swivelled and found a large snake-like beast just outside the hole in the ground, it lashed out with it's talons, the claw was visible scraping across the helmet, the marine fought back revving his sword and cutting off one of the beasts arms, but the beast then brought it's remaining


End file.
